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What’s In Your Nixon Library?

August 3, 2008 by David Emig | Filed Under Richard Nixon, U.S. History 

Recently, I was able to remodel a room in my house as sort of a study. After many months, I was finally able to retrieve the many boxes of books that I had in my library in San Diego.

Paramount among these books was my library on everything Richard Nixon. Along with all of the books written by Richard Nixon, I possess between 40 and 50 books, mostly biographies of Richard Nixon published between the years of 1980 to the present day.

I try to keep things updated. With of course, recent additions include a “Man In Full” by Lord Conrad Black, Nixon and Kissinger by Robert Dallek, and “Nixonland” by Rick Perlstein. Just today, I picked up “The Strong Man” by James Rosen.

I consider one of the most important books in my collection, is “One of Us” by Tom Wicker. I feel that this biography is the most balanced Nixon biography to come out.

One of the great benefits of my library as I do not have to go very far to research papers, articles and the like. Everything is right in my fingertips.

So the purpose of this post isn’t to wax about my library. I’m very interested to find out what is in the Nixon libraries of the contributors and commenters to the New Nixon Blog. What Nixon biography do you feel is the most important?

In the days that I was assistant editor of Checkers, the editor of Checkers, Chris Crain (who really had a fantastic collection of Nixon stuff — the best that I’ve ever seen) had a practice of buying two of every one of the books written by Richard Nixon. He would send one off to New Jersey to get it personally autographed. One of the things I wonder as well is how many among us have books personally autographed by Richard Nixon, and a brief story about how you got the work autographed.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do…



Comments

6 Responses to “What’s In Your Nixon Library?”

  1. russ on August 4th, 2008 4:06 pm

    I still think Jonathan Aitken’s biography is the best one-volume account of Nixon’s life. I’m more interested, though, in what was in President Nixon’s library. I know he admired Whitaker Chambers’ “Witness” as well as Blake’s biography of Benjamin Disraeli. Paul Johnson’s “Modern Times” was another favorite of his.

  2. Maarja Krusten on August 4th, 2008 6:24 pm

    What a great question, Mr. Emig!

    Interesting that Russ mentions Robert Blake’s book. David Gergen once noted Nixon’s high regard for the Disraeli biography. His comment about how much Nixon liked the Blake book appears in a Sept. 22, 2000 interview on a University of Virginia website. If you Google David R. Gergen and UVA Newsmakers and Eyewitness to Power, you should be able to find it. Gergen provides a very interesting assessment of Nixon. Gergen noted that Nixon read more history than any other President and would have made a good professor. He said he himself still has the Blake biography of Disraeli (as do I).

    Interestingly, I read Blake’s biography of Disraeli while I was an undergraduate (1969-1973). I liked it very much. Little did I know then that in 1976, I would join the National Archives and begin 14 years of work with the Nixon’s White House tapes and files.

    Given the fact that during my career as a National Archives employee, I listened to some 2,000 hours of the estimated 3,700 hours of Nixon’s tapes, I’m sure you’ll understand that for me, the definitive Nixon book has yet to be written. But I have read and own many of the books written by and about him.

    I envy Mr. Emig in having a room he can use as a study. My books are scattered all over the house. Off the top of my head, in no particular order, and without checking, I can say that I have Richard Nixon’s Six Crises and Memoris and all the books he wrote after leaving office. I have Julie Nixon Eisenhower’s biography of Pat Nixon. I have Stephen Ambrose’s three-volume Nixon biography; Jonathan Aitken’s biography’ Richard Reeves’s biography; Fred Emery’s Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon; Stanley Kutler’s Wars of Watergate and Abuse of Power, Bruce Oudes’s Memorandum: From the President; the Woodward and Bernstein books; Marvin Kalb’s The Nixon Memo, Monica Crowly’s Nixon Off the Record and Nixon in Winter; Robert Sam Anson’s Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard Nixon; Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober’s The Nixon Presidency: An Oral History.

    I have H. R. Haldeman’s Ends of Power and The Haldeman Diaries. John Ehrlichman’s Eyewitness to Power. John Dean’s Blind Ambition. William Safire’s Before the Fall. Henry Kissinger’s 3-volume White House Years, Years of Upheaval, and Years of Renewal.

    I have David Greenberg and Jeffrey Kimball’s Nixon books. I have Robert Dallek’s Nixon and Kissinger book. I have James Rosen’s Mitchell biography and Egil Krogh’s Integrity. I have others as well as I tend to acquire them as gifts or through my own purchases more so than checking them out of the library. But I don’t have time to look around my various bookshelves. I have a core set of books in one place but unfortunately, others are scattered around the house due to lack of space. Ah, if I only had a study!

    I remember looking at some passages in Tom Wicker’s One of Us in the library once when I was checking some specific information. But I don’t think I’ve read it. On your recommendation, I will.

  3. Maarja Krusten on August 5th, 2008 3:46 am

    Just to clarify, when I wrote, “I have others as well as I tend to acquire them as gifts or through my own purchases more so than checking them out of the library,” I did not mean I acquire library books! Poorly worded sentence on my part. I write some of these postings in the evening when I’m tired and it shows! I meant that rather than checking out Nixon-related books from the library, I tend to buy them or acquire them as gifts from friends.

  4. Paul Matulic on August 7th, 2008 8:51 am

    I have most of the books mentioned above, and have read most of the ones I have. I regret I have not kept up with the flow of new Nixon books, although Perlstein’s book is calling me. A few years ago I read Greenberg’s book, and enjoyed it hardly for the insights into RN but for the angle of the approach. My favorite book remains Ray Price’s “With Nixon,” not because it is definitive (how could it be, written when it was?), but that it captures a sensibility that is part RN, I suspect, but also reveals the decency of the author. We need more Republicans of both Price’s and RN’s ilk, to be sure.

  5. Logan on August 7th, 2008 6:23 pm

    I would vote Nixon Agonistes. Although I haven’t read a library full, this book provided me the most insight on RN.

    Thank you for the recommendation on “One of Us.” I just ordered it from amazon. Keep up the good work; there are very few blogs with as much talent behind them as TNN.

  6. Fred laan on July 1st, 2009 3:32 pm

    RN was not popular with everybody, but as a subject for books he is a true winner.
    At the moment I am reading “Richard Nixon – A Life in Full”, a biography by Conrad Black. Mr. Black is critical on his subject but also appreciates and defends him as only Bebe Rebozo would have done. He has gone through a huge amount of literature which results in lots of interesting facts. From time to time these are so many that they have a restraining influence on the story, but then the master writer appears again and do you forget that you are reading a book. Black is great in using facts as arguments for his comments.
    With the Memoirs of RN you are listening to our friend while sitting in his house in San Clemente. With the book of Black on the other hand you see RN constantly moving from one task from Ike to the next. And you instinctively wonder what would have happened with that presidency, the republican party or the country without RN.
    Black has written a bestseller about FDR, so it is not amazing that the readers gets also criticism and appreciation of the many people RN had to deal with, like Whittaker Chambers, Truman, Ike, senators, reporters, etc. This is an impressive must-read for all of you.

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